11. Wireless Printing and Scanning via Your iPad

Unlike laptop or netbook computers, the iPad does not contain a USB port that can be used to directly connect a printer or scanner to your tablet. However, built in to iOS 7 are the AirPrint feature and Bluetooth, which are two separate technologies that allow printers or scanners to wirelessly communicate with your tablet.

As a result, any app that integrates the AirPrint feature or taps into the iPad’s Bluetooth capabilities can be used to wirelessly access and utilize external peripherals, such as a printer or scanner. When it comes to wireless printing, Apple has teamed up with several printer manufacturers to incorporate AirPrint technology into a growing number of printer models. You can learn more about AirPrint functionality shortly.

However, if your home or office printer is not AirPrint compatible, there are options for making your iPad compatible with your existing laser, inkjet, or photo printer. You must use third-party software, such as Printopia 2 ($19.95, http://ecamm.com/mac/Printopia), on your Mac that’s connected to the same wireless network as your iPad, or you can connect a peripheral, such as the Lantronix xPrintServer ($99.95, http://xprintserver.lantronix.com/home-edition), to your home or office wireless network. The xPrintServer enables you to share printers currently being used by PCs or Macs with an iPad or other iOS mobile devices.

In addition to wireless printing functionality that’s available from an ever-growing selection of iPad apps, including Contacts, Calendar, Safari, Mail, Photos, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, several companies have released portable scanners that can be connected to the iPad, enabling you to take paper-based documents and photos and scan them into the tablet to create full-color digital files that can be viewed on the tablet’s screen, manipulated using compatible apps, and then shared with others. Learn more about scanning options later in this chapter.

If your printer is AirPrint compatible, you do not need any additional software, apps, or hardware to establish a wireless connection between the printer and iPad as long as they’re both connected via Wi-Fi to the same wireless network. If your printer is not AirPrint compatible, additional software and/or hardware is necessary to wirelessly print from your tablet.

In the past few years, printer manufacturers including Brother, Canon, Dell, Epson, Fiji Xerox, Hewlett Packard (HP), Lexmark, Kyocera, Lenovo, Sharp, and Samsung have released AirPrint-compatible laser, inkjet, and/or photo printers. Thus, there are currently approximately 200 printer models that are AirPrint compatible, starting in price at less than $100.

After the wireless connection is made, you can freely use the Print command that’s built in to an ever-growing selection of apps. In most cases, the Print command can be found within the Share menu of an app (which you access by tapping on the Share icon). However, some apps, including the iWork for iOS apps, have a separate Print command.

If you’re creating or editing a document using Pages, for example, and you’re ready to print the document, follow these steps:

1. Tap the wrench icon displayed on the Pages screen.

2. Tap the Share and Print option.

3. Tap on the Print option.

4. Tap on the Select Printer option from within the Printer Options window, and choose which printer you want to utilize.

5. Determine the number of copies of the document you want to print.

6. Tap the Print command icon in the Printer Options window.

For many other third-party apps, the Print command can often be found within the Share menu that’s part of the app. This is also the case for Safari and Photos, for example. After you set up the AirPrint feature once to establish the wireless connection between your tablet and an AirPrint-compatible printer, printing from your tablet is easy.

Using the Printopia 2 software on your Mac (or similar software). The Mac can be connected to the printer using a Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB, or Ethernet connection, but the Mac must be connected to your network via a Wi-Fi connection.

Connect the Lantronix xPrintServer device to your home or office network’s wireless router via an Ethernet cable. Up to 10 printers that are on a network (connected to other PCs or Macs within the network) instantly become AirPrint compatible and accessible from your iPad regardless of the printer make and model.

Download and install a third-party app on your iPad that enables you to connect wirelessly to your home or office’s wireless network to print from your tablet to printers that are connected to that network.

When Printopia 2 is installed on the Mac, the printers connected to that Mac are displayed on your iPad whenever you access the Print command from an AirPrint-compatible app. This works even if the printer itself is not AirPrint compatible.

Developed by Lantronix (www.lantronix.com), the xPrintServer is a small device (measuring 4.5” × 2.37” × .87”) that connects directly to any network’s wireless router using a standard Ethernet cable connection (an RJ45 connector). When the device is connected to a network, it seeks out all printers on that network and instantly makes them AirPrint compatible. In seconds, each printer becomes accessible from an iPad that’s running any AirPrint-compatible app (or an app with a Print command). Absolutely no configuration, special printer drivers, or optional software is required.

The xPrintServer works with laser, inkjet, or photo printers from more than two dozen printer manufacturers (and supports hundreds of printer models), including HP, Toshiba, Kodak, Lexmark, Canon, Brother, Xerox, and Epson. In some cases, the printer must connect to the network via Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cable (as opposed to a USB connection) to work properly from an iPad using the AirPrint feature.

If you’re interested in creating prints from digital images stored on your iPad (in the Photos app), there are also free apps available from the App Store, such as FreePrints, MotoPhoto, or RitzPix, that enable you to upload your images to a photo processing company via the Web and then have the prints shipped directly to you for a small fee.

Once receipts are scanned into your tablet, they can be imported into specialized apps (or software on your primary computer) that are used for expense tracking and/or creating expense reports. For example, the Shoeboxed Receipt and Mileage Tracker app (free), in conjunction with the fee-based Shoeboxed.com online service (www.shoeboxed.com), is designed for this.

Using one of several portable scanners currently available from Brookstone and Doxie, for example, you can scan any document or image into your iPad to save it, and then you can store, view, edit, annotate, print, and share it using a variety of third-party apps.

The iConvert Scanner for iPad ($79.99, www.brookstone.com) is an extremely lightweight and portable, 300-dots-per-inch resolution scanner that enables you to scan any full-color or black-and-white document or photo that’s between 2” and 8.5” wide.

The scanned documents are then saved in a JPEG format, which is compatible with a variety of iPad apps. The iConvert Scanner works with the free iConvert Scan app that gets downloaded from the App Store. This app is used to scan and save the JPEG files. Then, you can use other apps to view, organize, store, edit, annotate, and share the digitally scanned files.

Unlike other scanners that are compatible with the iPad, the iConvert Scanner connects to the tablet via the tablet’s built-in 30-pin Dock Connector port. This port is located on the bottom of the tablet. Thus, to use the scanner, simply set the iPad on top of the scanner and launch the iConvert Scan app.

The scanner itself measures 12.1” × 4.4” × 2.8”, and it weights 1.44 pounds. The iConvert Scanner is not battery powered, so you must plug it in to an AC power source to operate it.

Another portable scanning option is the Doxie Go + Wi-Fi portable scanner from Apparent Corporation ($229.00, www.getdoxie.com). This is a compact, battery-powered scanner that you can use anywhere.

After you scan paper-based documents (up to 8.5” wide) into the scanner, the scanner connects to any wireless network via Wi-Fi and transfers the scanned documents to the online (cloud-based) service of your choice, such as iCloud, Dropbox, Flickr, or Evernote. The files can also be sent directly to your own FTP site.

After being uploaded, you can access the scanned files using an iPad that’s connected to the Internet so that you can view, save (in a choice of formats), edit, and share them using your tablet.

Unlike the iConvert Scanner from Brookstone, the Doxie Go + Wi-Fi can create searchable PDF files from scanned documents, so you can use optional third-party apps, such as PDFpen or Evernote, to edit or annotate the scans. Or, if the scanned file is a graphic or photo, you can save it in the JPEG format and use it with the iPad’s Photos app (or any third-party photo-editing and sharing app).

The Doxie Go + Wi-Fi Scanner measures 10.5” × 1.7” by 2.2”, weighs 14.2 ounces, and can easily be transported in a briefcase or computer bag, making it perfect for a mobile executive.

The Doxie Go + Wi-Fi scanner has a 600-dots-per-inch resolution and can scan an 8.5” × 11” page in eight seconds (in 300 dpi resolution). The scanner’s internal memory holds up to 600 pages or 2,400 photos. You can connect an optional USB flash drive or SD card to the scanner to provide more internal storage until you can sync files with an iPad or computer.

The Neat Company (www.neat.com) also offers a portable scanning solution as well as a specialized iPad app that enable you to scan and work with scanned documents and images on your tablet.

In addition, the Neat app (free) transforms your iPad into a scanner using its built-in camera. The app itself then uses text recognition capabilities that enable you to work with and edit your scanned documents. The Neat app only works with the separate NeatCloud service (http://store.neat.com/NeatCloud.html), which is a fee-based service for managing and syncing scanned documents and files.

Using any of these scanning solutions with an iPad, it’s easy to manage, access, and store documents, files, and photos from virtually anywhere. When combined with wireless printing capabilities and the functionality of various apps for viewing, editing, and sharing documents, photos, and files, the iPad gains capabilities that were once exclusive to desktop or notebook computers.

If the scanner can transform the scanned document into a PDF file, using a third-party app, such as PDFpen, iAnnotate PDF, or GoodReader for iPad (available from the App Store), you can annotate and edit any PDF file, as well as view, print, and share it from within the app.

The scanned documents or files created by a scanner that can only create JPG files are treated like digital photos by your iPad. You can view, print, or share them using the Photos app or another photography-related app that’s available from the App Store. Some photography apps, such as Skitch for iPad (free), enable you to annotate digital images.